Cameron inherits £300,000 tax free from his father, who left estate worth £2.7m

David Cameron has been left £300,000 in his father’s will – boosting his already considerable wealth.

While the Prime Minister has been anxious to play down his privileged background, newly released probate records show retired stockbroker Ian Cameron left an estate totalling £2,696,771.

The late Mr Cameron had already reduced the size of his estate in July 2006 by transferring ownership of the £2.5million family home, near Newbury, Berkshire, to his oldest son Alex.

The £300,000 he left to his son David was just under the £325,000 threshold on which tax of 40 per cent is paid.

Other wealth may also have been placed into trusts meaning the death duties are only liable on the £2.696million.

Multi-millionaire: Ian Cameron at his daughter Clare's wedding last year

Much loved: David Cameron kissing his father on an election rally last April

The bulk of the estate, after taxes and funeral expenses, goes to the late Mr Cameron’s widow Mary, 75.

The will was approved by the principal registry of the Family Division on December 22.

Mr Cameron, 44, is currently living in Downing Street with wife Samantha and their three children but he still owns a £1million country home in Oxfordshire and a £1.5million home in North Kensington, West London, which is rented out to a tenant.

He was last year forced to deny claims he was worth £30million.

Mr Cameron has paid off the mortgage on his North Kensington house and used taxpayer-funded MPs’ expenses to help pay the £350,000 mortgage on his sizeable second home in his Oxfordshire constituency.

He suggested he used shares to pay off some of the mortgage but his wife Samantha, 39, is also independently wealthy.

When asked about his wife’s properties, Mr Cameron once famously said dismissively that his wife had no homes of her own, but ‘owns a field in Scunthorpe’.

He seems to have been referring to the fact that Mrs Cameron’s father Sir Reginald Sheffield, 63, owns some 3,000 arable acres in north Lincolnshire that have been in the family since the 16th century.

Canny: Ian Cameron transferred the family home in Peasemore to his oldest son Alex, a barrister, in 2006 to avoid large death duties

Sir Reginald, the eighth holder of a baronetcy dating back to 1755, is believed to be worth at least £20million – and a single acre of farmland can be worth £7,000.

The late Mr Cameron, who died aged 77 after suffering a stroke on holiday in France in September, was born with unusually short legs and a total of just seven toes.

Even after numerous childhood operations to lengthen his legs he was just 5ft 2in tall.

Despite severe health problems, he built up an impressive fortune in the City that helped fund David’s years at Eton.

The late Mr Cameron is assumed to have decided that transferring the family home to Alex, 47, a barrister, meant he was already well catered for, so he was left nothing in the will.

Beneficiary: Clare Cameron, left, at her wedding last year

Well off: Tania Cameron and her older brother Alex, also at the wedding in April

However, the will does make provision for his daughters – Tania, 45, and Clare, 39 – by leaving them an interest in his second home, in West London.

That property is worth £1.2million and any rental income is passed on to his wife. After her death any monies will go to the daughters with Tania owning 51 per cent and Clare 49 per cent.

Ian Cameron left the bulk of his estate to his wife Mary, which means it does not attract inheritance tax

Out of a £2.7million estate, death duties of 40 per cent may be
payable on all the monies above the current threshold of £325,000,
meaning the total tax paid will be around £1million.

However, married couples such as the Camerons are allowed to pass
assets from one spouse to the other during their lifetime or when they
die without having to pay inheritance tax.

The threshold of the second spouse then increases to up to £650,000 when they die

The rules also clamp down on those who try to avoid tax by giving assets away.

If assets are given away within seven years of death, their value is added to your estate when you die.

This does not appear to have applied to the house transferred to the Prime Minister’s brother, perhaps because the deal seems to have been a swap, with the late Mr Cameron moving into Alex’s former home next door.

And it is possible to argue that by leaving almost everything to his wife – on which no tax may have been due – and £300,000 to son David, just under the £325,000 threshold, the late Mr Cameron ensured his estate paid no inheritance tax at all.